1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, a job management system, and an information processing program, which are capable of carrying out job accounting when peripheral apparatuses on a network are used by users via client computers or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, peripheral apparatuses, such as printers (printing apparatuses), scanners, and copying machines, connected to a network have been used by users at their discretion, which makes it difficult for the administrator (operator) of the peripheral apparatuses or the network to perform management based on a firm grasp of what each peripheral apparatus is used for or what processing is carried out by the peripheral apparatus, even though the administrator can take a general view of the status of use by each user.
Further, when a limit can be set to the use of a peripheral apparatus by a user, the administrator grasps the use status of the peripheral apparatus, calculates the limit according to the use status, and notifies the user of the limit. However, this operation places a burden on the administrator. To solve the problems described above, a job accounting system has been proposed, which carries out a job accounting operation on the use of peripheral apparatuses (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2001-282475). FIG. 16 shows the proposed job accounting system.
As shown in FIG. 16, the conventional job accounting system is comprised of client computers 1410 and 1420 as information processing apparatuses, a base server computer 1430, a printer 1440 provided with a job history storing function for storing a job history (print history), a MFP (Multi Function Printer) 1450 provided with a printer function, a copy function, a scanner function, and a job history storing function, and a printer 1460 which is not provided with the job history storing function.
In the client computer 1410, when an application 1411 for generating documents calls a GDI (Graphics Device Interface) 1412 as a graphics engine of an operating system (hereinafter, simply referred to as “the OS”), the GDI 1412 generates print data using a printer driver, not shown, in response to an instruction from the application 1411, and sends the print data to a spooler 1413.
A job accounting client application 1414 is a software module installed for executing job accounting. The job accounting client application 1414 monitors (hooks) calling (print request) of the GDI 1412 by the application 1411 and accumulates job information on print jobs containing print data. This job information includes the number of print sheets, the number of pages, a print size, the type of sheets to be used, information indicative of whether the printing is to be executed in a single-sided printing mode or a double-sided printing mode, and N in 1 print information (information for specifying the number of pages to be printed on one face of each sheet). The job accounting client application 1414 periodically sends the accumulated job information to a job accounting server application 1431 provided in the base server computer 1430.
On the other hand, in the client computer 1420, a job accounting client application 1424 periodically monitors a spooler 1423. As a result, when there is a print job spooled in the spooler 1423, the job accounting client application 1424 acquires the job information on the print job using an API (Application Program Interface). Then, the job accounting client application 1424 sends the job information acquired by periodically monitoring the spooler 1423 to the job accounting server application 1431 in the base server computer 1430.
Thus, in the conventional job accounting system, acquisition of job information including the number of print sheets, a sheet size, and so forth by the client computer 1410 is performed by the above described method in which the job accounting client application 1414 acquires job information by hooking the calling of the GDI 1412 by the application 1411, or a method of monitoring a logical printer on Windows (registered trademark), periodically issuing “Win32 API GetJob” over a time period from input of a print job to erasing of the same, and referring to the acquired information. Therefore, in the conventional job accounting system, the use time of the CPU and resources in the client computer 1410 are inadvertently wasted, which can increase load on the client computer 1410. This also applies to the client computer 1420.
To solve the problem with the conventional job accounting system, it is envisaged to use a port monitor dedicated to the job accounting system. For example, the client computer 1410 is configured such that the output destination of the printer driver is set to a port monitored by a dedicated port monitor of the job accounting system, and the dedicated port monitor of the job accounting system is activated when print data is to be transmitted to a peripheral apparatus, to deliver job information on the print job to the job accounting client application 1414. The use of this configuration makes it possible to eliminate the need to hook the calling of the GDI 1412 by the application 1411 and the need to periodically monitor the spooler 1413.
In the existing client computer 1410, however, the printer driver and a port monitor (i.e. a port monitored thereby) associated therewith have already been set by the OS, and therefore the user needs to carry out an operation for switching the output destination of the printer driver to a port monitored by a dedicated port monitor of the job accounting system.
Further, in recent printing systems, numerous shared printers on a network are used by a plurality of client computers, so that each client computer has a plurality of printer drivers installed therein. Therefore, when the job accounting system is newly introduced, the administrator of the job accounting system has to help the users of the client computers under control to switch the ports monitored as the output destinations of printer drivers installed in each client computer to the ports monitored by the dedicated port monitors of the job accounting system. This operation is extremely troublesome for both the administrator of the job accounting system and the users, presenting a serious obstacle to introduction of the job accounting system.